


the wolves are coming

by Self_san



Series: the waning of winter [1]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe-Gender Changes, Angst, Colonial Life, F/M, Human!Jack, Oh Fuck-Sad, Pre-Canon, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:44:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Self_san/pseuds/Self_san
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jackson Overland was born in the heart of winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the wolves are coming

Jackson Overland was born in the heart of winter, in a small village in Pennsylvania. Her father wanted a son, but is pleased with a daughter.

She has a mother, and, though sometimes the house is cold and the food sparse, they are happy. She has her mother’s face and her father’s laugh. She can never keep her hair in its neat braid and is constantly tearing the hem of her skirts.

Her mother is with child once more, and they are happy, even as her mother grows pale and wane and her father picks up extra hours at the tanners.

Her sister is born in the heart of summer.

A mother and a wife is lost.

They are sad, but the happiness?

It comes _back_ , as the baby lives through the first, second, _fifth_ winter of her little life. It comes back, as they smile together and laugh together and _live_ together. A family, who, still poor, are wealthier than some.

By the age of thirteen, _Jackie_ is the woman of the house. She makes their clothes, darns their socks and knits their scarves. She cooks and she cleans, and their floor is the cleanest dirt floor in all of the town.

She takes care of their few, gamey chickens and their sow--she is the one who trims her father’s beard and kisses her sister’s hurts. It is her touch that, like a mother’s, drives away even the worst pains a skinned-knee can bring.

They are still happy, even if Jackie stops going to school so that her sister can, so that she can take in washing and bring in a few pennies of income.

Her father welcomes it, even as his smile tightens.

She looks just like her mother, by fifteen, and the men of the town, some young, some old, take notice. She is more mother than sister, and takes care to hush the want her sister has to call her ‘ _ma_ ’ instead of _Jack_ or _Jackie_.

If her father heard it would break his heart.

Sixteen through seventeen she turns away suitor after suitor, mostly young men with gangly limbs who seek a bride to watch their homesteads and a body to warm their cool beds.

It’s not that she does not _want_ to be wed, though she doesn’t, but that her sister is too young, her father getting old--she must stay and tend to them.

If anything, such an explanation only brings _more_ suits, _more_ flowers, _more_ eyes darkened by desire as they stare at her lithe wrists and her thin waist--the subtle swell of her hips through the thick wool of her dress and apron.

She holds out until the autumn she is to turn eighteen before giving in, to an older fellow, a widower with a kind smile who runs the local grocers. She has sold eggs to him for years, jars of fresh honey in the spring and holly in the winter. He always gives her an extra penny for her honey and a sweet to take home for her sister. He has no children, all dead in the war, and he walks with a slight limp. But he is _kind_ , and his laugh is warm enough to fill a room, and so Jack accepts his flowers, tucking ting sprigs of lavender behind her ears, and brings out her best and brightest grin and wears her nicest dress when she goes to bring him her wares.

He notices, of course he notices, and he blushes redder than she, but is willing, is _wanting_.

They are to be married in the spring, and Jack is happy enough, for he is soft-spoken and never raises his hand to his negro and is _more_ than willing to give an allowance to watch over her sister and father, once they are wed and Jack leaves her family behind.

Leaves her life behind.

*

 _Winter is in Jack’s blood_ , her father always said, when people would look at her and her sister, gaily playing in the snow or skating over the frozen pond when even the stoutest of children huddle inside near the warmth of a fire.

And it is true--Jack loves winter, for all the trouble it brings.

Jack loves to skate and to built snowmen. Jack loves the land, draped in a blanket of white. Jack loves the look of wonder on her sister’s face, when they wake to windows painted with ice.

Jack loves winter.

And so of course she says yes, when her sister begs her to leave the sowing of her wedding gown to skate. Of course she says yes.

So Jack dons a pair of trousers ( _unseemly_ , but understandable, skating in a dress being impractical and oft-times rather dangerous) that she borrowed from her husband-to-be’s negro, and laces the legs so that she can tie her stakes over them. She takes one of her father’s old shirts and a vest of his, one that she needs to mend. Then she pulls her own cloak over the top of it all and slings her skates over her shoulder. She doesn’t bother doing anything with her hair, leaving it in the braided, messy crown that her sister had done for her the night before.

Laughing, she follows her sister to the pond bank, helps her wrestle into her skates before doing her own. She tweaks her sister’s nose and makes sure that her dress is straight and her stockings well-tucked.

They are happy.

*

The ice is too thin, is cracking, _cracking_ under her sister’s feet--

Jack doesn’t think, unlaces her skates, she needs to be able to keep her balance, to get her sister to the bank--

The cold is like a knife through the soles of her bare feet, but it’s a distant though, hushing her sister’s fears, calm, she has to stay calm--

“Jack, I’m scared,”

_It’s going to be okay, I promise, here, let’s play a game--_

_I don’t wanna play!_

_I know, I know, but trust me, we’re…going to play hopscotch, just like we do everyday--_

There is a stick, a crooked, thin branch, and the ice fractures under Jack’s feet as she dances towards it. Her sister is smiling, giggling at her silly faces, and--

_Now you._

_One._

_Two._

_Three!_

Her sister falls, crying out as she slides across the ice, and the relief, the _relief_ \--

She’s safe, she’s safe, thank you God, _thank_ _you_ \--

Jack is smiling when the ice breaks under her feet.

Her sister’s scream is the last thing she ever hears.

*

Jackson Overland was born in the heart of winter, in a small village in Pennsylvania. Her father wanted a son, but is proud of a daughter who is loving and kind.

She had and lost a mother, and, though sometimes the house was cold and the food sparse, they are happy.

She had her mother’s face and her father’s laugh and was to be married in the spring to a man that, well, she might not have loved, but that would have been kind and who would have made her happy.

She could never keep her hair in its neat braid and was constantly tearing the hem of her skirts.

She died a cold day in winter, saving the life of the person she loved most in all of the world.

A mother and a wife was lost.

Her body will rest at the bottom of that pond forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Jesus Christ...where the fuck do I come up with this shit at?


End file.
